Holy crap I got a lot done today. If you remember from yesterday, I forgot to attach a wire for the float fuel sender. Instead of ordering an appropriate sized wire, I used some of the only aircraft grade wire I had laying around, which was some 16 AWG. I know that is way too big (we’re just measuring a resistance), but it’ll work so I can install these tanks for the last time today.
Some people run two wires, but I checked the resistance through the tank, and I’m getting a nice solid reading from the tank itself, so here’s my one wire to the center conductor.
First official aircraft wiring. Done.
After reinstalling the tank, I held the wire to the negative lead and held the positive lead against a few different points on the tank.
All read between 38Ω and 240Ω or so, so I’m good.
Sweet. I don't have to unseal the tank to attach another wire to the sender body.
I’m flying through these skins right now. Pretty soon, I’ll have nothing left to do other than install the upper wing skins.
On tap for today is some dimpling and priming.
Here’s the inboard skin, ready for dimpling.
...on the nice vacuumed workbench.
Oh yeah, don’t forget your scarf joint. (A nice transition from the inboard skin to the outboard skin by the tank so there isn’t a big step.)
Looks good from this angle.
I also filed down the inboard side of the outer skin (the one I’m holding below).
Okay, this looks like it will work.
For some reason, you can see a little of the edge on the left side of the picture, but I didn’t notice this with my naked eye.
I’m very happy with it. It is a great transition from tank to skin.
I'm very happy with this.
After the scarf joint, I spent about 2.5 hours dimpling.
I've been using the male die on top with great success.
More dimpling.
After a little prep, I shot these with self-etching primer.
I sprayed them outside, then moved it back inside to dry.
For the outboard skin, I actually hung it inside-out on the wing.
More priming glory.
The wingwalk reinforcement skin.
And finally, the exterior side of the inboard skin where it will underlap the outboard skin.
3.0 hours of dimpling fun. All I have to do now is deburr and dimple the skeleton. Then, skin riveting!
Andrew's RV-7 Build Log 